


The Warpath

by HighVelocity



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-24
Updated: 2013-10-11
Packaged: 2017-12-21 05:58:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/896648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HighVelocity/pseuds/HighVelocity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fight, Drift, blur. Brief explorations of pilot and Jaeger relationships. </p><p>For Quidamling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Warpath

Fight for so long, Drift for so long, you lose a little bit of your sense of self, no longer being two or three strict identities. You are your co-pilot and your Jaeger and they are you, the resultant entity a messy mix that works. It’s not without flaws, and some days the bleedovers and the ghost drifts are too much for  you to bear, so you wind up tucked somewhere between bunk and wall and the living heat of your co-pilot. There is security between simple flesh and skin-warmed steel.

Fight for so long. Drift for so long. Neural handshake still holding steady.

(Somehow.)

Kaiju won’t go down. Hour timer running into the double digits. 

The edge of your/her/his vision shows Striker.

Broad shoulders and scarred metal. 

Sparks churn in the middle of your chest. 

Cat IV won’t go down. Bellowing rage into the water, tails whipping free. 

Block, grab, pull.

Striker kneeling on its neck, blades embedded deep into flesh, tearing it open. 

And then it’s over.

Mako/You/Gipsy reaches out without thinking, reading bone-deep exhaustion in the set of Striker’s shoulders. Something so sleek and gorgeous and dangerous should never look so defeated.

Hands on shoulders and the dull reverberation of metal meeting metal, sending a mild shock through your fingers that you can see Striker feeling in the lift of that fine head and the flash of that visor. 

Maybe it’s just projection. Something/someone whispers that it’s not.

You won’t hear the engines outside of your suit and the Conn-Pod, but your imagination supplies it all the same, and Striker sounds better, sounds a little less tired.

Later, Herc touches your arm in just the same way, and gives you a knowing smile. 

Chuck punches you, because he  _is_  an asshole like that, but it’s in the same spot, and you read no malice in his gesture.

Crossing the Shatterdome with Mako, studying Gipsy’s leggy, romantic elegance beside Striker’s compact, war-ready brutality, and thinking:  _they fit_.


	2. Summer Breeze

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is how you know everyone is linked, in some small manner.

"I gotta feeling Gipsy likes Striker."

"Correction,  _you’ve_  got a hardon for the old girl and the hot new Jaeger on the block, and you’re projectin.’ Don’t you be talkin’ crazy up all like that, I _know_  you."

“ _You_  know me so? Bullshit, Eames. Bull, fucking, shit." 

“ _I_  know you so, asshole. Now you shut up and hand me that, or we’re gonna be here all day."

“ _With_  Gipsy? Aww, man, you make it so easy for me."

Raleigh fights hard to suppress a wicked grin, striding out of earshot of the two mechanics. Mako flicks her eyes to him, brighter than ever as a raucous laugh reaches their ears, threading through the bustle of the Shatterdome.

"I don’t blame them," Raleigh leans over to whisper with a broad grin. “She’s gorgeous, and Striker’s a badass."

Mako grins back at him, just as brilliantly, her blood still singing from the feel of the Drivesuit, the Jaeger around her. 

—-

"Do you think they fit? Striker and Gipsy, I mean."

Another day, another lunch break spent not in the mess, but on a platform overlooking Gipsy, as she’s surrounded by the usual flurry of workers, keeping her in top shape. Raleigh leans back on his palms with a soft half-smile, turning the image over in his head. 

"Yeah. Yeah, I think they do."

"Even though Chuck…"

Raleigh laughs, straightening to look at her. God, he never thought he’d be able to drift again, never thought he’d find someone else drift-compatible. Never thought he’d ever get back in a drivesuit and pilot Gipsy, his beloved Gipsy, home to the memories of the best three years of his life. His chest sparks with warmth. 

"Even though Chuck. Yes, Mako. Even though Chuck."

They finish their meal in affectionate silence, Gipsy watching over them.

—-

Gipsy Danger takes point on the next deployment. Before she wades into the fray, Striker Eureka brushes a hand over her elbow.

A touch of good luck. A flash of amber visors. An unseen smile, read in body language, the acknowledgement of a nod, the tilt of a head.

_Yes. They get it_.


	3. Warm Machine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> People can and do change.

Chuck looks annoyed and contrite by turns as he corners Mako, talking quietly. He does not fidget, nor is he stiff, but apology is written all over his stance - something you sort of never thought you’d see. 

Mako bows politely, and he returns it. 

That tiny, tiny little hint of her still hooked into your brain flickers with surprise and contentment, a fresh swell of respect. 

You rather like where this is going.

—-

_Joint Deployment #3_

At the end of it, Gipsy sweeps her hand down the middle of Striker’s back.

—-

Under the mess hall table, your foot is hooked around one of Mako’s ankles as you dig into your meal, and your knee is pressed against Herc’s. You can’t see it, but you know that the toe of Chuck’s boot is jammed up against his father’s boot, and Mako’s elbow consistently bumps into Chuck’s, completing the strange four-way(six-way, actually) circuit that has sprung up between all of you.

It should be awkward, but it isn’t, and for once, Chuck isn’t half the arrogant bastard he usually is. The expression of cautious hope on Herc’s face pulls at your chest, sending a fresh wave of sparks cascading through you. 

Mako stealthily squeezes his knee. You grin at her, and she smiles with her eyes.


	4. Solstice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The shortest day, the longest night.

Gipsy takes the brunt of the next Kaiju attack.

Harder, faster, bigger, _tougher_ , they emerge, one by one by two by three from the Breach. There are brawlers with massive fists and thick lantern jaws. There are whip-thin spitters dripping with acid. There are regal behemoths with lashing tails and snarling mouths. There are wrecking balls for heads, to protect, to smash armour. There are titanic arms to wrench open joints, to pummel without mercy. There are blunt crushing teeth to shatter plating.

And then there are the eyes. Big eyes. Bright eyes. Sharp, intelligent, and sparkling with malicious intent.

The time they'd bought to hold the lines, their Miracle Miles, is running down faster than the space taken between one breath and the next.

Then Gipsy takes the brunt of the next attack, sinking underwater with the desperate blare of a foghorn and the flash of lights.

Striker has never moved so fast before.

\---

It should be the stuff of legend - in fact, in fifty years or so, when the dust finally begins to settle, it _does_ become legend - but in the immediate aftermath, silence reigns, hanging like a dusty velvet curtain over a theatre screen.

Stacker's grip on the back of Tendo's chair is white-knuckled, as warnings blare at them. Hands twist in overalls and over caps, curl into fists, clutch at other hands.

It's so very hard to remember that the Conn-Pod is sealed when the water churns like the jaeger are drowning.

\---

Long before the Rangers fade from the public eye, the story of Striker Eureka incapacitating two Cat IV Kaiju to reach Gipsy Danger, pulling her to the shallows and to safety, becomes one of _the_ most romantic stories that form the bedrock of Ranger lore and jaeger-pilot relationships.


	5. The Dog Days Are Over

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Dog Days were popularly believed to be an evil time."

Chuck is an asshole. He knows this, and he puts it to good use, bulling past medical personnel because _fuck the whole lousy half-cocked lot of you, all of you, I need to see them now **right now**_ is a legitimate reason for him to pull out the old rockstar diva Jaeger pilot persona he's carried for all of his life.

He needs to know that they're alive, that they're breathing. He needs Raleigh's ability to kick his ass down a few pegs and he needs Mako's incredible analytical mind and he needs them the same way he needs to see his father's surprisingly sweet smile on that scowling face. He needs to see it for himself.

He needs them like air, needs them like Striker needs(wants) Gipsy.

The Jaeger might've been his mother and the PPDC might've been his father, and he might've been born and bred for the Kaiju War in a country-continent where historically, everything wanted to kill you, but it was Mako and Raleigh who taught him how to be _human_.

With hands braced on one end of either cot, staring at pale faces, he shudders and shakes, eternally lost at nine years old.

\---

Herc finds him crashed out between Raleigh and Mako's cots.

Stacker, of course, already knew, and thus, Stacker was already there when Herc finally swung through the door, chest tight with a tangled web of emotion. The look bestowed upon the Sergeant is a look granted from one father to another, as he twitches the end of a blanket into place over Chuck.

Herc drops his head to his chest for a second, a precious second of relief and regret tainted with failure _because fuck the fact that even his bloody **commanding officer** is a better father than he's ever been_. It lasts until Stacker takes his elbow and guides him out of the room with a gentle touch, turning off the lights on their way out.

\---

They don't speak of how one rough, calloused hand unfurls under another like a flower to the sun, sharing heat and solace, pressed palm to palm. The ghosts of old Drifts still linger between them, leaving everything unsaid to flow into that empty, shared space.

Stacker's hands are gentle on his skin.


	6. Lifeline

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They're just getting the hang of this living thing.

_Gipsy Danger dropped to her knees with a sound like a moan that reverberated through Striker Eureka’s entire being. Amber visors flashed with alarm as Striker started to drop, too, but the angry, strident blare of a foghorn tore through the crashing waves, pressing Striker back into combat._    
  
 _//Kaiju down// was transmitted through the stubborn touch of a large hand, and Striker Eureka’s refusal to move. Gipsy Danger **growled** , sending Striker Eureka away._  
  
 _There was worry in the gleam of light off of her visor; worry and something else better left unnamed._  
  
 _// **No**. Check for pulse.//_  
  
 _And that was that. She would not hear of Striker Eureka staying by her side. Not with the possibility of them being blindsided by another Kaiju._  
  
 _And there could be no rest until she was assured that the Kaiju were dead._  
  
 _Striker Eureka waded back into the depths, at the ready. If nothing else, Gipsy Danger would have time enough to rally herself and get back into the thick of it._  
  
 _There could be no pulse without a head, though. A thin thread of satisfaction flickered and twisted in the ether between them._  
  
 _Behind Striker, Gipsy pushed to her feet and shook off water. Like clockwork, they moved to opposing sectors, sweeping for Kaiju signatures._  
  
 _No pulse without a head._  
  
 _Striker Eureka doesn’t wonder if what is crushed underfoot is simple terrain or the remains of a silicon-based lifeform._  
  
===  
  
You’re not the first to awaken, but you’re certainly not the last, either. Oddly enough, some part of you is Gipsy is Raleigh looking for Herc for Striker because Striker took a heavy blow straight across the back and a dull, hoarse scream started resonating in the back of your skull.  
  
Herc’s bleary gaze and quiet smile isn’t a surprise, but Chuck… Chuck’s glower sort of is.  
  
It’s also infinitely amusing, because he’s still seated on the floor, and you can just about make out the wild tufts of blonde and red-rimmed eyes peeking over the edge of your cot. The angry glare lasts until a hand reaches out and flops onto the top of his head, ruffling his hair with easy affection.  
  
Underneath the noise and bluster of Chuck’s agitation and Herc’s attempt to get him to shut up, Raleigh’s bemusement and Mako’s silent laughter, a four(six)-way connection flickers to life.   
  
Somewhere in the Shatterdome, Gipsy Danger’s systems are thrumming contentedly.  
  
===  
  
 _//No pulse// quickly becomes a sort of strange in-joke shared between Gipsy Danger and Striker Eureka._


End file.
